Random Bits

"You know where I'm at in age? I don't need anything. That's a little scary — when you know that the last two bras you bought are it. You won't need any more. I'm not going to live long for any big, new discovery at Victoria's Secret."

- Elaine Stritch

Have the Syfy movies gotten progressively worse? Because I thought, with "Stonehenge Apocalypse" it couldn't possibly get worse. Boy, was I wrong - "Stonehenge Apocalypse" at least had a few marginally good actors in it (which, y'know, at least we know they paid rent or a mortgage payment or two out of the project. Kept food on the table, that sort of thing). Saturday, we caught most of "Mandrake" - thinking, well, it will be terrible, but probably good for a laugh or two! Um, no. Just really very bad. The setting was the amazonian jungle. Which looked suspiciously like a northern forest. The plot was... nearly invisible.

(search for a bejeweled dagger, which when removed from it's final resting place, awoke a hungry bloodthirsty plant that picked our plucky explorer/treasure hunter people off one by one).

And the ending was telegraphed an hour before the movie's end. So, not even grounds for *good* mocking. It was just SAD.

And Syfy's next offering? "SHARKTOPUS!" Which, wait, WHAT? Really?

... ... ...

I guess it always can get worse.

So I purchased my tickets to Beijing for November. I hate massive travel that takes one through more than six time zones. To get there, my flight leaves Boston at 6:30am, a three hour layover in San Francisco, and arrives in Beijing around 4:30pm THE NEXT DAY. - but only about 18-20 hours will have elapsed in real time

Going home is even more wacky. I leave Beijing at 1:30pm and arrive home (after almost three hour layover in San Francisco) at almost 8pm THE SAME DAY. But it still would have taken about 19 hours to get there. So with the wacky stretchy time thing - Beijing I think is twelve hours different - I'm going to be all messed up.

Good times.

Anyone have surefire cures for jet-lag?

Sometimes, when you have a "learning experience" you learn what the universe was trying to teach you and become wiser than you were before. But sometimes, all you learn is how to be cautious. Remember to learn the right things, and sometimes a little adventure is necessary for a well-lived life.


In other news, I hate currency exchange math.

...I've wanted to blog about lately! Stuff going back to March - but I've been either too sick or too lazy to do it. So a LIST! I can give you a list about the ridiculous and the sublime. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which! So, in no particular order:

* Our team dinner for the Anaheim meeting was at Medieval Times. It was... loud. And probably went better with beer. The falconer was cool, though. The story line was fairly silly. And one of the horses kept frothing at the mouth. (Our knight won! The Prince was saved! And the bad guy got what he deserved!)

* My cousin came for a two day visit with my folks, and brought with her a ton of stuff from my Great Aunt's estate that she thought my dad should have charge of, being the nominal Head of the Family. Including a cut crystal bowl from the first part of the 20th century (gorgeous! And been in the family for over eighty years). It looks vaguely similar to this one:
http://www.aspireauctions.com/auctions/2007SEP/thumbs/18085-01.jpg
Part of the stuff is lots of OLD family photos - from 1904-1940s and up. God, Wedding Gowns really were GOWNS in those days. And the veils went on for yards! Also included in the bottom of one of the boxes was a folder of my great aunt's poetry. Written during the second world war, a lot of it is devastating. And, also my dad's certificate of completion of Sonarman training for the Navy (which made me LOL - how the heck did my aunt end up with that?).

* Saw Gwen's show. She was awesome and hilarious in her roles. Absolutely stole the scene she was in as the very inebriated Miss Dinsmore. The show wasn't a bad show, even with the issues I had with one of the leads (looked terrified when she danced, and always plays the same damned role no matter who she is cast as). Most folks wouldn't pick up on that, though, it is strictly a personal opinion.

* I am finally feeling better! Still coughing a bit, but for the first time in a few weeks I am waking up sans sore throat. Yay!

* Saw a bit of TV last night I *had* to inflict on Gwen. So I live blogged what she was missing until she abandoned her program and changed the channel. It was called "Sizing Up Sperm" and I swear I haven't laughed so hard in a long long time. It was on the NatGeo channel, and it took the premise of if sperm were people-sized (Sized Up) what would their journey through the male and female reproduction system look like? It was hilarious - and the poor voice-over guy had to say the silliest things completely straight. I wonder how many takes it took to describe the "women's elite defense force" "sperm assassins" (which were dressed kinda like zombie ninjas) or the cervix being described as "sperm hell" and further described as a "dark twisted hell" (thanks so much for describing parts of my body as hell). And then, (keep in mind the "sperm" are being played by people wearing white) at the point of conception, the sperm decapitates itself to merge with the egg. Pops itself like a pimple! I did find out that "male" sperm swim better, but "female" sperm live longer. And yes, some sperm get to the end of the fallopian tube and fall off the edge of the "earth" (heyre be dragons). It was by turn horrifying and awesome. So, if you like documentaries that have a (really completely) silly premise, check it out. The city skyline with the great big round "testicle" is completely worth seeing (Sized Up, one testicle would be 1000 meters square. That is some kind of cojone!).

* Huh. I am almost sure I had another list point, but I can't remember it now. Ah, well. I guess that's it!

This is too damn cute for words. One of my FB friends pointed to this youtube vid. Apparently gay marriage isn't difficult for children to grasp, after all (not that I thought it was).

Calen, you are wise beyond your years.

In the files of you can't make this shit up (no one would ever believe you).

So I've been poking around on the Web site for my college alumni news (truthfully, looking for more info about Miss Annetta's death) and I came across a fairly unique service project happening at the college.

My college is big into service, volunteerism and giving back to the community. There are a lot of on-campus houses and parts of dorms set aside for people who group together to do something together for the community. These are all student run and student governed. One house was the arts house (the house I lived in for three years did arts outreach on campus and off, volunteering in various ways), one house had mentors for a specific social program (my first year roommate was in the house that mentored teens who got pregnant for a year her sophomore year). It was a way of getting out of the dorms when I was there, and avoiding the sections (local sororities and fraternities were called "sections"). Now it has been over fifteen years since I was in college, but things have not changed that much.

I came across an article about seven guys (all class of '11) who crochet hats for three charities (a homeless shelter and two others). They meet twice a week for a few hours at a time (sometimes with some sporting event on the television in the back ground) and they crochet together. They say they each try to make one to two hats a week, depending on difficulty (ear flaps, pompoms, and color changes all add difficulty). They call their crochet circle the Brochet Society. Because they are all men. Who crochet. Together. They were able to turn this into all living together in one of the on campus houses.

Um, yes, I kind of love this. It is like fuzzy, live fanfic (yes, I immediately thought of Hermione).

So yesterday I spent the whole day doing Nutcracker things for Miss Michelle. She had thirty kids in the show this year, and I like the changes she'd made (and the new sleigh is awesome). The two top dancers, one a freshman at BC and one a senior in HS are still beautiful dancers - I've seen these two girls dance for *years,* Since they were pretty wee.

We all went for dinner after an extremely quick strike (I got to be the "drop folding maven" again, and lots of the teens have been part of my drop folding 101 speeches, so this drop got folded so damn well, and really damn quickly). Dinner was a lovely capper to the day, and the snow had not yet started to fall by the time I got home.

I was exhausted when I got home so I went to bed fairly early. No snow. Got up this morning and OMG SNOW. Between twelve and fourteen inches fell overnight into the morning. I went out midafternoon to shovel and it took me about two hours. It was lighter than the first snow of the season (which was rain, snow, rain, so half what I shoveled was wet slush/ice), but there was about three times as much of it. This snow was cold,snow,stilldamncold - so there has been no melt at all.

So unless there is an unseasonable warm up, we are white for Christmas. And New Years. And likely through January and February and into March (although, who knows, they are predicting highs in the fifties on Saturday, and possibly rain).

I was *going* to have lunch with my parents today. I was also going to continue my holiday shopping. Neither happened. Instead I shoveled out my driveway, cleaned off my car, and not much else.

But I have food, water, power and the internet, so I am better off than many up and down the east coast (especially in those states that don't know what to do with (or just don't have the machines available to take care of) snow/snow removal... like the DC area).

Hope everyone is okay! How was *your* blizzard?

At a ridiculously early time. Still in California, and gave up sleeping past 5:30am this morning (regular rising/breakfast time at home is 8:30am).

Anyway, after my shower I turned on the TV to Discovery HD. Now this is a lovely huge 42 inch flat screen HD TV. And at 7am every morning, Discovery HD does this program called "Sunrise Earth" where they film an entire hour at a remote location so you can enjoy the sunrise somewhere on Earth every day. It is a lovely, quiet hour - where all you hear is the rushing of wind or water, the small (or big) noises of animals. I've seen this a number of times, and so far I've loved every one of them. They are mostly unpopulated, except I've caught a few surfers or boats in the distance - but you never see or hear the filming crew. They do long shots and closeups and extreme close ups so you get a real sense of the space. Its really very lovely.

This morning I came in part way through, so I missed the blurb of where in the world we are and I took one look and said (to myself, out loud, because I do that) "Huh. That looks almost like West Quoddy Head"(Maine - the most eastern tip of the US). Because I've seen the sunrise from West Quoddy Head. But not exactly like West Quoddy Head - there was something not right about the land in the sea - too much of it - too many islands. But very much like the coast of Maine. Almost like I've seen this particular coast line before.

Wait a few minutes and the "where we are and what we're watching" blurb comes up again. Lo, and behold! We are watching the sunrise this morning from a summertime filming from the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. It looked familiar because it *is.* I've stood at the top of Cadillac Mountain and looked out over that same view. Just not at sunrise.

Hello Maine! So nice to see you again!

"Delish." This is not a word. The word is "delicious." "Delish" makes people sound stupid and lazy - is "delicious" too onerous to say?

The last thing we need is another buzz word or sound bite. Why shorten it?

And why does this particular shortcut word annoy me so much? Maybe it is because the sound is ugly, and unpleasing to the ear. Maybe it is because it replaced a lovely word. "Delicious" just rolls so nicely off the tongue. It feels good, and sounds good, and means good things. On the other hand "delish" sounds tough and mean and I'm not sure I'd want to put something described as "delish" in my mouth.

Yeah. I totally didn't get enough sleep last night, can you tell?